Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves (Folk Lore 2)

“Can’t believe you came here like this after staying silent for a month!”

“I’ve had an accident, okay? The last thing I wanted was to endure your comments while I’m recovering. And we have a guest, by the way. My new friend, Yevhen,” he said once Yev stood next to him.

Silence.

But Radek didn’t care about her embarrassment. If she didn’t want to be judged for shouting, she shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

“What accident?” she asked just as he entered the circular space with Louis XIV-style furniture and a wall painting depicting a Greek landscape with ruins in the foreground.

Radek took a deep breath and glanced at Yev for encouragement, but there was no easy way to do this. “Tah-dah!” he said as he pulled up the sleeve to reveal the stump he didn’t want to see himself.

The cookie she was holding dropped to the tiny porcelain plate before she could have continued to scold him. She placed one hand on her throat, the other on the table, going visibly pale under her carefully bronzed and blushed face.

“Oh… oh no…”

Yev stepped forward. “Are you all right, Mrs. Nowak?”

She gritted her teeth, looking away. “Why is this man here?”

Radek dropped the pretense of a smile and let his shoulders droop. “He’s a new friend of mine. He’s been helping me out a lot, so I wanted you to meet him,” he said despite kind of knowing that Mom was well aware of Yev’s existence. “I had a fireworks accident in Madeira for New Years and… I guess I didn’t have the guts to come see you for a while.”

Her breath wheezed but she stopped Yev from coming closer with a single gesture. “You lost your arm, and you didn’t think it would make sense to call me? What kind of son are you?”

Discomfort squeezed Radek’s stomach, causing uncomfortable cramps. “Because you always yell at me!”

She took a deep breath through her nose. “Mr. Yevhen? Could you excuse us?”

Yev shifted his weight but at least had the decency to glance at Radek. There was no way around it.

“I’m sorry, could you wait in the living room? I’ll be back soon.” Radek huffed in frustration when Mom squinted at him as if her eyes were daggers she’d throw as soon as Yev left.

Yev’s gray eyes expressed very little, but he nodded and said his goodbyes to Mom before leaving the room.

Radek’s stomach twisted at the sound of his footsteps getting ever quieter but was forced to look up when Mom rose from her chair, shoulders squared as if she were preparing for battle despite only wearing a mustard-colored dress. “What have I done wrong? What did I do that you treat me like this?”

“You criticize me all the time! Nothing’s ever good enough, so of course I was afraid to show this to you, because you’d just say the accident was somehow my fault!” He was glad he’d already cried his eyes out on Yev’s shoulder today, because they were itching again.

She took a deep breath, shaking her head as she raised both her forearms in a helpless gesture. “Because it is! How come you’re always the one who does stupid things? Why can my friends all have normal children? You won’t even be able to write now!”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Radek hated that her opinion still mattered to him, regardless of what he liked to tell his friends. “I’m trying to adjust, but it’s not been easy, okay?”

She shook her head, growing ever more flushed as she spoke in a high-pitched staccato, face red. “Unbelievable. Your whole life’s been a piece of cake so far! Even your so-called work was arranged by your father! When I was your age, we both lived in a tiny room at your grandparents’, because we couldn’t get our own place. You don’t know what hardship means! You’re spoiled! Even when you got hurt, you prioritized yourself over telling me the truth, because you didn’t want me to yell at you! Are you five? You were supposed to come back and help take care of me once you finished university. That was months ago!”

“I’m the one prioritizing myself? It’s you who wants me to drop everything to come live here. I’ve been through a traumatic event, and all you do is complain even though you have help and everything you need provided!” He couldn’t help the bitter rage spouting out of him. Their conversations always escalated into fights, and he didn’t know if they would ever talk normally anymore. “I’m selfish? Why aren’t you asking me if it hurts?”

She shook her head, but her lips pressed together, as if she were swallowing angry words. “Because you didn’t tell me. I’m your mother. I should have known something happened, but you always push me away as if I were a burden!” Her voice broke, and she spun around, covering her face with both hands.